Is Russia going wrong?

IT NEVER seems to get better. That, at any rate, is the feeling of millions of people who live in Russia—and of many foreigners who cast their eyes on that haunted, baffling country so rich in potential. False dawn, it seems, follows false dawn. Reformers come and go. Brutality, venality and poverty seem constant. Ten years after communism started to collapse, a demographic disaster—with male life-expectancy “stabilising” at around 58 years—has befallen a truncated, humiliated nation. And now Russia's most effective reformer, the first-deputy prime minister and finance minister, Anatoly Chubais, appears to have committed political suicide (see article). Is it time to abandon the hope that Russia will soon emerge as a modern, liberal, capitalist democracy?

Certainly not. The current crisis of leadership is worrying, to be sure: without dextrous and steely hands in charge, the Russian machine of state is always prone to splutter and grind. Yet all is not lost.

Gloom and zoom

Bear in mind that the transformation already achieved in Russia since 1991, when Boris Yeltsin came to power, is little short of miraculous, however much remains to be done. Especially since reformers led by Mr Chubais grasped the levers of government last spring, Russia's health has begun to improve more quickly, showing what determined leadership can achieve. Shortly the economy, battered in recent years not by “shock therapy” but by the legacy of decades of communist incompetence, should register an increase in recorded output, the first since the collapse of the Soviet Union—and this official measure belittles the true improvement. Inflation, for the moment, is under control. Until Asia's troubles put all emerging stockmarkets in the dock, Russian equities were soaring, indicating a new willingness by foreigners to make the investments in Russia that the country so badly needs.

In short, things have improved a lot: the mood of despair to which Russians and outsiders alike are prone is often overdone. A platform is in place for economic and political progress. The question is whether that opportunity can be seized—or whether the humbling of Mr Chubais, whom many see as the only reformer capable of meeting the challenge, will delay Russia's deliverance, possibly for years.

Given Mr Chubais's acknowledged strengths, might Mr Yeltsin not help him to ride out this storm? Much as the president might wish it, the history makes this awkward. A year and a half ago, Russia was embroiled in a presidential battle to stave off the return of communism. Russia's new businessmen rallied, and cut-throat competition between business-cum-political clans was suspended. But once the fight against diehard Marxism was won, an equally vicious one began between those who would truly open Russia to the world—to market forces and the rule of law—and those among the new capitalist oligarchy who prefer the rules of the jungle. Earlier this month, Mr Chubais forced Boris Berezovsky, a businessman whose support had helped to get Mr Yeltsin re-elected, out of the government. His message was clear: such backers had no right to divide the spoils of the state among themselves. Now Mr Berezovsky (exploiting the media outlets he owns) has bitten back—with revelations that put Russia's key reformer in a similarly unflattering light.

In accepting an implausibly large advance for a book he is co-authoring (and from a firm now owned by a bank that is his political ally), Mr Chubais appears to have broken no law. But having paraded himself as the cronies' foe, he acted foolishly. He set high standards for himself. It is now almost inevitable—and in many ways right—that he should forfeit the enormous powers that have been at his disposal.

Without Mr Chubais's dynamism, guile and vision, the government may indeed drift: in a system of government where institutions are weak, strong individuals are essential. Yet a similar mood of alarm attended the departure of Yegor Gaidar from high political office. The West once invested all its hopes for reform in him—before Mr Chubais turned out to be a much more effective operator. And Mr Chubais, far more so than Mr Gaidar before him, has placed good people strategically throughout the administration. The Duma, unhelpful though it is, may yet lack the stomach for a reform-busting showdown—and even Communists these days seem to accept, albeit grudgingly, some of the broadest tenets of economic sense. Indeed, the Duma may be willing to co-operate with a reformer appointed to take Mr Chubais's place.

Everything therefore continues to depend on Boris Yeltsin. His illness notwithstanding, it will not do for him to adopt a passive end-of-regime persona after the manner of Ronald Reagan. Mr Yeltsin must retain and firmly back genuine reformers at the top of his government, lending them his decree-laden weight at critical moments. Mr Chubais had himself hoped for two good years of political calm and constancy, so that—come Duma elections due in December 1999 and the next presidential race in the summer of 2000—reforms would have become truly irreversible, with Russians even starting to notice their benefits. If that is not to be, Mr Yeltsin must find the right man to replace Mr Chubais, and then take up the cudgels on the new man's behalf.

It is a commonplace to say that Russia cannot revert to its Communist past. Almost certainly, this is true. But Russia can still go very wrong. If the Chubais brand of reformer loses credibility, an array of non-Communist Russians could still pull Russia down: corporatists, fascists, colonels, mumbo-jumbo Slavophiles, crony capitalists. Contenders for the presidency—the populist ex-general, Alexander Lebed; the plausible but crony-stroking mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov; the stolid, trimming ex-apparatchik and current prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin—all have defects inimical both to Mr Chubais and to Russia's future well-being. What matters now is that Mr Yeltsin backs a proponent of the Chubais way forward—and stays alive and punching for the next two years.